


BOTW Oneshots

by gaygarbagebaby



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death Fix, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Memory Loss, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), tagging is hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25965787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaygarbagebaby/pseuds/gaygarbagebaby
Summary: All of the BOTW oneshots that I have posted and will post on my Tumblr, in one place! Warnings at the beginning of each chapter, when applicable.
Relationships: Link/Revali (Legend of Zelda), Link/Revali/Teba (Legend of Zelda), Revali/Teba (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 91





	1. Chapter 1

Somehow, when Ganon rises, Urbosa isn’t surprised.

It’s just all too cosmically perfect - that the world’s most primordial evil has the perfect timing, to awaken from a slumber of thousands of years at the precise _hour_ at which their hope is lowest. Almost as if it knows.

Almost as if it knows.

That thought nags at her the whole time - as she rides a borrowed steed toward Gerudo Canyon, as she jogs (!) all the way from the stable to Kara Kara Bazaar, as she takes a sand seal the last leg to Gerudo Town, as she boards Vah Naboris. Almost as if it knows - as if it had not, in fact, been as dormant as they had thought, but somehow, had been watching. Planning.

When she activates the terminal and is met with orange light and swirling darkness, she still isn’t surprised. 

The beast is fast, but she is faster. It wields lightning, but hers is stronger.

The fight is a blur, at first. She strikes it down, again and again, dark liquid dripping from her blade, but every time it gets back up, seemingly unaffected. It swings its axe, and it should be as easy to dodge as it was the first ten times but she is beginning to tire and it slams into her shield and there is a horrible crunching sound and Daybreaker cracks, right down the middle. She roars and moves in to strike, abandoning her usual finesse for sheer rage, and the blade sinks in so deep that she nearly loses her grip on it. Then she yanks it out, and the beast _screams_ and it draws back, darkness pouring from the wound like blood. She moves to strike again, but before she can, it retreats inward on itself, a radiant blue glow encompassing its form as it shrinks down into a sphere the size of her fist and flies out of sight.

For one brief, glorious second, she thinks it might be over.

No such luck - she turns around and there it is, hanging in the air, lightning crackling around it - not the lightning she knows and loves, but a sickly green kind, sour and corrupt as the beast itself. Metal stakes appear out of thin air and embed themselves into the platforms and the floor. She almost laughs. It’s too easy. 

As it screeches and raises its arm and the metal stakes begin to spark, she runs. She leaps up the nearest ramp, up until she’s by the terminal again, and she pulls one of the stakes out of the ground. It’s lighter than she expects. She hefts it over her shoulder and throws.

It hits its mark. The beast falls. She snaps her fingers and the lightning answers her call. The beast does not scream again, for it is dead.

The adrenaline wears off, and she collapses.

Burn marks stain her arms. There is blood running down her side. When she tries to stand up, putting weight on her right leg, it protests but does not give out. She grabs at the edge of the terminal and pulls herself upright. Her fingers dance over the stone, and the angry orange fades to a gentle blue.

She makes her way outside, to the control panel situated atop its head. It isn’t until she’s set Naboris’s sights on the castle that she looks up, and her stomach drops.

Ribbons of darkness, streaked through with a deep, purply red, wrap around Hyrule Castle. Beyond, perched on the side of Death Mountain, Vah Rudania is surrounded by the same. 

She looks to her right, towards Zora’s Domain. Vah Ruta is shrouded as well. To her left. Vah Medoh too, although underneath the darkness she can see the brighter red of its shields. As she watches, the red flickers, and then dies.

She doesn’t know how, but in her gut lies a horrible certainty that her fellow Champions have fallen.

Then, she will have to be strong enough for the four of them. She screams, and Vah Naboris fires.

___

It’s not enough.

Days pass. Ganon rages, but leaves Gerudo Town and the surrounding area alone. Zelda visits, wearing the same expression that she had at her mother’s funeral. She tells Urbosa that the Guardians and the other three Divine Beasts are all under Ganon’s control, that her father is dead, that Link is dead, that Purah and Robbie are taking him to the Shrine of Resurrection, that her powers had awakened only once it was far, far too late. She tells her that she is going back to the castle, to try and contain Ganon until Link awakens and regains his strength. Then she cries, and Urbosa wants nothing more than to hold her close and tell her that she loves her and that she has done her mother proud, but the words don’t come, so she just hugs her little bird as tightly as she possibly can and prays that it is enough.

That night, she dreams of a woman made of stone, whose smile is impossibly sad and whose words are impossibly cryptic. She says that she will give Urbosa one more gift - the gift of time. The rest, she will have to do on her own.

Over the next 100 years, Urbosa only cries twice.

___

She hates being old. Some days, she hates it so much that she wishes she too had succumbed to the scourge set upon her Divine Beast a century ago. She hates being bedridden, hates how the simple act of sitting up makes her back ache in twenty different places and gives her a headache to boot. But more than that, she hates how people treat her. She used to command respect. Now all she gets is reverence. People look at her and they see not a person, but a story. 

Some people are still good to her, though. She corresponds with the Sheikah elder, Impa. Riju, the young chieftain, speaks to her regularly, and her determination and maturity well beyond her years reminds Urbosa of her little bird. She almost forgets why she is allowed to remain alive in the first place.

Then Riju tells her of a mysterious tower, with a heart of orange light, that had suddenly risen near the highlands, and of others like it across the land. Two days later, she receives a letter from Impa.

_Link has awoken. I have advised him to find his way to you as soon as he is able. His time in the Shrine of Resurrection robbed him of his memories and his strength, but he seems to be regaining the latter quite rapidly. I have done what I can with respect to the former, but you knew him far better than I ever did. I can only hope that seeing you again will help him remember more of his past. I am sure that this is an unnecessary request, but I beseech you to help him in any way you possibly can._

_-Impa_

Riju tells the guards to allow a Hylian voe by the name of Link to enter, should he come asking for the Lady Urbosa. No such voe arrives, but they do welcome in a Hylian vai who makes a beeline first to the arrow shop and then to the palace. “She” looks exactly as Urbosa remembers.

“You look as lovely as ever, Link,” she tells him, and he blushes. He stands in the doorway, awkward and hesitant, and she beckons him closer.

“You don’t remember me.” It is a statement, not a question, and he nods.

 _“I remember bits and pieces,”_ he signs. _“You helped me sneak in. Zelda liked you. She spoke to you as if she’d known you her whole life.”_

She nods slowly. “What else do you remember? Of everything.”

 _“Very little,”_ he responds. _“Voices. I remember voices, but not who they belong to. And…”_ He rummages in his bag and pulls out a small, familiar assemblage of wood and cloth. _“I remember this…a gift. From Revali.”_

It is something of a gift, she decides, that he remembers so little. A painful gift, to be sure, but if he remembered everything…even he would crumble under the weight of all that loss, revealed so suddenly, and in such dire circumstances. She tells him what she thinks necessary for him to know - the names of the Champions, where their Divine Beasts are, that the Zora may still remember him but he will be a stranger to the Goron and the Rito. 

She does not tell him about how Mipha would heal his wounds after every battle and gently scold him for his recklessness. She does not tell him about how Daruk would laugh heartily and slap him on the back with a hand almost as tall as he was. She does not tell him about how Revali would braid his hair each night until he leaned back into the Rito’s chest and fell asleep. Those are not her memories to share.

She tells him to visit, sometimes, and he nods uncertainly before leaving. She raises a hand in farewell, then drops it back down to her side, exhausted.

Urbosa knows the line between hope and belief is a thin one. But deep in her heart, she believes that this time, things will turn out differently.


	2. Chapter 2

When Revali first meets Sidon, he wants to throw up.

It’s not the fault of the Zora Prince - he is boisterous, friendly, charming, and only occasionally annoyingly over-the-top. But something about meeting Mipha’s family - her _brother_ \- people who see her not as Mipha the Champion but Mipha the sister, the daughter, the friend -

It twists his stomach up into knots. He hates it.

He feels the same way when he sees Daruk and Urbosa again for the first time, and they swap stories about how their peoples had responded to their return. The Gorons had built Daruk a goddamn statue, and the Gerudo chieftain had offered Urbosa her old position back (which she declined). When they turn to him, he looks away and huffs. It hadn’t been until he’d recovered enough to show off his Gale that anyone but the Elder had even believed he was who he said he was.

When he gets back to the village, he spends a day at the Flight Range, hoping for some solace, or at least distraction. No such luck. Someone must have seen him heading off, because the small cabin quickly fills with Rito archers, watching and whispering, sometimes approaching to ask for advice. He answers them all, until it suddenly becomes too much and he abruptly leaves, ignoring the cries split between confusion and awe as he spirals up and away, as far and as fast as he can from the range and the village. He flies all afternoon and deep into the night, tears stinging in his eyes and not just from the speed.

Master Revali, the Rito Champion, an outcast in his own village. Pathetic.

His instincts carry him southeast, over the castle, all the way to Hateno Village. To the house he had shared with Link, before the Calamity. Of course, reminiscing on his past with Link comes with its own deep wells of pain, but…there’s a strange kind of comfort to it, as well. He has just enough forethought not to just barge in through the front door, instead landing unsteadily next to the fire outside and immediately collapsing into a shivering heap. 

He wakes up the next morning, scorching hot on one side and covered in mud, to a bemused Link standing in front of him.

“…Hello.”

 _“Hi.”_

“I, um.” He sits up, brushing a clump of dirt from his shoulder. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

Link raises an eyebrow. _“Then why did you come?”_

“…Well.”

Before he can even try to come up with something resembling a coherent response, Link is pulling him to his feet and into the house. He follows along, equal parts embarrassed, confused, and relieved. Link pushes him gently into a chair and procures a rag, which he uses to start carefully wiping the mud from Revali’s feathers and clothes.

“…You know, I am perfectly capable of grooming myself.”

Link just shrugs. He doesn’t stop, and Revali doesn’t stop him. 

“I assumed you’d be with the Queen,” he says after a few minutes, and Link tosses the rag over his shoulder to respond.

 _“I resigned,”_ he signs, and Revali starts a little in surprise. _“She doesn’t need a full-time bodyguard, anymore, and…I don’t know. I wanted to finally have some time for myself, I guess.”_

“I see.”

 _“So.”_ Link takes a step back, looks Revali over, and nods, before pulling up another chair and sitting down across from him. _“What’s up?”_

He doesn’t want to tell him - doesn’t want Link to know how _weak_ he is - but there’s something about his eyes, blue as the sky and full of gentle concern, and Revali feels something inside of him snap.

“How did you do it?,” he asks, and he despises the shaky, broken voice that it comes out in, but he presses on. “You woke up in a world that had forgotten you and that you didn’t remember, a world where you didn’t have a place anymore, and you did by yourself what an entire kingdom couldn’t. I-” he cuts himself off, feeling the telltale sting of tears behind his eyes. He breathes in, one, two, three times, until the feeling goes away and he trusts himself to talk again. 

“How…” He shakes his head desperately. “How could you bear it? How _can_ you bear it? Because I fucking can’t, and-”

His voice actually breaks then, and the tears he had been trying so hard to keep back burst out like water from a breaking dam. Dimly, he registers Link standing up and moving over and pulling him hesitantly into a hug. It’s so achingly familiar, yet so immeasurably distant and _wrong_ because _Link doesn’t remember him._

He wants to scream. He wants to scream, or say something cruel, and shove Link aside and walk out the door and fly as far away as he possibly can from everything and everyone he’s ever known. Instead, he just buries his head in the crook of Link’s neck and cries.

After what feels like an eternity, he sits back, and Link pulls away. Revali can see confusion in his eyes, mixed in with the concern and the sadness, and he can feel that familiar twisting in his stomach again.

A quiet “I’m sorry” is the first thing that falls from his mouth, and Link shakes his head vigorously.

_“It’s OK-”_

“No! It’s not OK, because you don’t fucking remember me and _you’re not supposed to have to deal with me like this anymore-”_

And then he’s crying again. Goddess, does he hate himself.

Link tries to hug him again, but he shakes him off and retreats into himself, wanting nothing more than to disappear off the face of the earth. It takes him embarrassingly long to pull himself together again, and he doesn’t let himself look back up at Link until he’s certain that he has no more tears left.

Link, Goddess bless him, doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t try to touch Revali again, either, just sits and waits until he’s done. 

_“I remember this house,”_ he signs when Revali can look him in the face again, and he frowns at the apparent non sequitur. _“I remember this being one of the only places I ever felt like I could relax. And…”_ He tilts his head. _“I remember you being here. A lot.”_

A tiny spark of hope alights itself in Revali’s chest. He nods. Link smiles.

_“You can stay, if you’d like.”_

Revali blinks, initially not sure if he understood. Then the words sink in, and with them a multitude of conflicting feelings. He doesn’t want to burden Link, to be a constant reminder of the past he clearly wants to move beyond. And he doesn’t know if he could take it, either.

But…he wants to try. For the first time since his return, the possibility of rebuilding what he used to have with Link feels like it could be a real one, and he wants to hold onto that as tightly as he possibly can.

So he meets Link’s eyes, spreads his wings, and says, in the most magnanimous tone he can muster, “You make such a generous offer, I may as well take you up on it.”

Link snorts. _“You’re a dork, you know.”_

Revali puffs up and glares at Link in mock offense. “I’ll have you know that I am the most dignified individual you will ever have the privilege of watching sob in your arms.”

_“I think Zelda wins that one, actually.”_

The banter continues, over lunch, as he accompanies Link to the general store, as they cook dinner, and as Revali settles into a bedroll near the top of the stairs, he feels the knot in his stomach slowly unravel itself. It feels right.

(After a week, Link offers to share the bed, and that feels right too.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings: major character death, grieving, brief but somewhat graphic description of violence, blood.

At the end of the day, it’s just...bad luck.

Bad luck that Teba’s still unsteady on his horse, and the focus he has to devote to staying upright in the saddle takes away from the careful eye he’d typically have on their surroundings. Bad luck that the skies open up and send down upon them a light mist, urging their little party into a canter in a futile attempt to reach the nearest stable before they’re all soaked through. Bad luck that Revali and Link insist on bantering the whole time, because of course they do. Bad luck that thanks to this precise combination of factors, none of them hear the low thrum of galloping horses, off to the left side of the road, far away but approaching fast.

Bad luck that Link turns to face Teba at exactly the wrong moment, and the arrow that had been about to hit him in the shoulder instead lands square in the middle of his throat.

It’s over in less than a minute. Revali immediately leaps off of his horse, summons an updraft, soars into the air, and in one fluid movement takes his bow off his back, nocks an arrow, and shoots down the bokoblin as it waves its bow in the air in triumph. Teba is half a second behind him, taking a moment to assess the situation— two more bokoblin on horseback, one wielding a club and the other a spear— before springing into action, unslinging his own bow and knocking the club-wielder off its horse with an arrow to the chest. He turns his aim to the other just as Revali dives down upon it, talons digging into its shoulders, pulling it off of its horse and dragging it viciously across the ground until it goes still. Teba lands and does a quick once-over. As soon as he’s certain that they aren’t in any more immediate danger, he sprints back over to the horses, panic building rapidly in his chest. 

Link lies sprawled out on the side of the road, eyes closed, and for one long, hysterical, hopeful second, Teba thinks he might sit up and cough and wipe the blood from his tunic and give him that ridiculous little grin he puts on every time Teba frets over one of his wounds. But he doesn’t move, and his face is so white, and there’s a ragged hole straight through the middle of his throat and _so much blood_ and a horrible weight starts to settle itself in Teba’s stomach.

This can’t be his Link. His Link is always moving, fidgeting, full of nervous energy. His Link is rosy cheeks and a smile like the sun and only ever just enough blood to make him worry. His Link is _alive_ , and this limp, pale thing lying in front of him is...not.

Behind him, Revali screams.

Teba knows he should feel...something. Shock. Anger. Grief. Guilt. But they don’t come. All he feels is the weight. In a daze, he stands and walks over to Link’s horse, which is tossing its head and shuffling about, clearly spooked. She quiets as he approaches, and he rifles through her saddlebag until he finds bandages and Link’s cloak. 

He starts by dressing the wound, wiping away the blood as best he can and carefully wrapping bandages around Link’s neck. As he works, Revali collapses next to him, laying his head on Link’s chest as he weeps. Once Teba finishes and the ugly gash is hidden but for a small red spot in the front of the bandages, he takes Revali by the shoulders and pulls gently. 

“Revali,” he says quietly, and his lover looks up at him, eyes desperate and deeply, impossibly sad. Teba tugs at him again, and this time he comes, wrapping his wings so tightly around Teba’s chest that it nearly knocks the wind out of him and letting out a ragged wail. Teba holds him close, awkwardly patting his back in some vague, wholly inadequate attempt at comfort, and Revali buries his head in the crook of Teba’s neck, breaking off into quiet, choked sobs.

They sit there, on the side of the road. Time passes. The rain passes. Travelers pass, too, but they pay them no mind, and the few that dare to approach wither rapidly under Teba’s glare. Revali clings to him, head tucked underneath Teba’s beak and eyes tightly shut, as if he could fight off the crushing reality simply by refusing to acknowledge it. Teba just stares. He stares for so long that he very nearly convinces himself that he’s used to it. As if he could ever accept this image of Link, pale as death and motionless in a puddle of his own blood.

Eventually, Revali opens his eyes and disentangles himself from Teba. He draws in a deep, rattling breath, leaning into Teba’s side for support. 

“We should bury him,” he mutters, and Teba furrows his brow in confusion.

“What?”

Revali gestures toward Link. Towards Link’s body. “We should bury him,” he says again, louder this time, and he sounds as empty as Teba feels. “That’s what...that’s what Hylians do with their—” 

He cuts himself off before the last word, and Teba puts a wing around his shoulder. _With their dead,_ he thinks. _Link is dead._

He doesn’t say that. Instead, he says “we don’t have a shovel,” because maybe focusing on these kinds of petty material concerns will help the both of them turn their minds away from the horrible pit of darkness rapidly opening up beneath their feet. Another thought occurs to him, and he grabs onto it with all the desperation of a drowning man to a rope. “Shouldn’t we bring him to the castle? We’re nearly at Tabantha Bridge, and it’s only a couple days’ travel from the stable there.”

Revali shakes his head, and Teba notes with relief that he seems grateful for the distraction. “He wouldn’t— I don’t think he’d want all the ceremony. I suppose we could bring him back to the village, but…” He trails off, sagging a little, and Teba tightens his grip on his shoulder. “I can’t bear it, Teba, the thought of...of fucking carting him around for a whole day, I just can’t.”

“Yeah.” The telltale sting of tears pricks hard behind Teba’s eyes all of a sudden, but some ridiculous urge to hold himself together, for Revali’s sake if nothing else, has him blinking them back. “I...I could fly over to the stable, see if I can get us a shovel.” He sees Revali’s eyes widen in alarm, and he quickly amends the statement. “Or you could, and I’ll wait here. You’re faster than me anyway.”

“OK.” Revali exhales shakily and bows his head. “OK. OK, I can do that,” he says quietly, and it sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself than anything. Teba squeezes his shoulder once more before letting go, and he reluctantly pulls himself away from Teba’s side and to his feet. He takes in a deep breath, crouches, summons another updraft, and spirals off into the sky.

Teba watches him glide away, until he’s nothing but a small speck on the horizon. Then he turns his attention back to Link. He carefully slides one wing underneath his neck and the other behind his knees, ignoring the sickening feeling of blood soaking into his feathers, and lifts him up, cradling the limp body to his chest. Leaning down, he presses his forehead to Link’s, gently rubbing his beak against Link’s nose as he had used to do every night as they settled into bed. The thought hits him like a ton of bricks. Had _used to_. He would never say goodnight to Link again.

“I’m sorry, love,” he whispers into Link’s ear, and the last of his composure crumbles. He dissolves into tears, clamping his beak shut and rocking back and forth, trying desperately to swallow his sobs until it’s too much and they burst out in short, painful gasps. The weight in his stomach vanishes, replaced by the awful, vertiginous feeling of free-fall, spiraling down and out and his wings are slick and wet and saturated with red and bile starts to rise in his throat and—

“Oh, Teba,” is all he hears Revali say, before the shovel clatters to the ground and the dead weight in his arms is carefully lifted away and placed gingerly on the ground. He collapses forward, into Revali’s wings, feels his lover rest his head on his shoulder and feels his tears fall softly onto his neck. Revali says something else, inaudible over the blood pounding in Teba’s ears. He just shakes his head, pressing his face into Revali’s chest and wills himself to find his composure again, to ground himself, to save this debilitating grief for nights back home.

They fall into autopilot, eventually. They take turns with the shovel to dig a shallow grave, and Teba wraps Link in his cloak before lowering him into the fresh, damp dirt. He watches numbly as Revali slowly covers him, staring at his face, trying to affix every last detail of it in his mind before it’s covered up as well. Gone forever. No sign left of him but a pathetic little mound of overturned earth.

At Tabantha Bridge Stable, Revali returns the shovel and turns in their horses. They rent a single bed, a good foot and a half too short for Teba, but he spends the night curled around Revali anyway because letting him out of his sight for even a moment is utterly unthinkable.

In the morning, there are no words, just despairing glances and blinked-back tears. They fly back to the village, and by some unspoken agreement land not there but at the Flight Range, which is mercifully empty. It’s saturated with Link’s absence, more than anywhere in the village proper, but it is their sanctuary and nothing, not even this calamitous emptiness, can take that away from them.

Teba cooks dinner. He burns the fish to hell, and neither of them have any appetite anyway, so he just throws it away. They sit and stare at the fire, Revali’s head in Teba’s lap. Link sits across from them, a ghost neither of them thinks the other can see, and his smile is worth all of the words he can no longer say.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Teba says quietly, and Revali sits up. He wraps a single wing around the back of Teba’s neck and pulls him in close, pressing their foreheads together, and gently rubs their beaks together.

“I know,” he responds. “Me neither.”

**Author's Note:**

> My Tumblr is @revalisimp! Follow me there for...whatever the fuck it is I'm doing. I certainly don't know.


End file.
